A Social Cognition Framework

for Examining Moral Awareness

in Managers and Academics Jennifer Jordan

ABSTRACT. This investigation applies a social cognition

framework to examine moral awareness in business situa-

tions. Using a vignette-based instrument, the investigation

compares the recall, recognition, and ascription of impor-

tance to moral- versus strategy-related issues in business

managers (n = 86) and academic professors (n = 61).

Results demonstrate that managers recall strategy-related

issues more than moral-related issues and recognize and

ascribe importance to moral-related issues less than

academics. It also finds an inverse relationship between

socialization in the business context and moral awareness.

Future directions for moral awareness research and the

practical implications for these findings are discussed.

KEY WORDS: moral awareness, moral sensitivity,

social cognition, managers

Introduction

The catastrophic corporate scandals of the last

decade have caused business practitioners’ ethical

(and unethical) actions to be scrutinized. The media

has begun to look at business through a more

critical lens (e.g., Morgenson, 2006, Sect. 3.1) and

the government has enacted strict legislation in-

tended to prevent future harm to shareholders and

non-share-owning stakeholders (e.g., Sarbanes–

Oxley; U.S. Sentencing Guidelines). The academic

community has similarly begun to recognize ethics-

related topics as worthy of investigation (e.g.,

Brown et al., 2005; Trevino et al., 2003; Weaver

et al., 1999a, b). Within the psychological domain,

these issues have sparked interest in how funda-

mental theories of human cognition and behavior

are related to ethics in organizational contexts

(Agle, 1996; Jones, 1991; Trevino, 1986); however,

few empirical examinations have resulted from this

interest. The current investigation contributes to

this research domain by examining business man-

agers’ and academics’ awareness of moral-related

issues within a social cognition framework. Spe-

cifically, it examines how schemas affect individu-

als’ recall, recognition, and ascription of importance

to moral1-related issues in decision-making con-

texts. This investigation takes the cause of unethical

decision-making beyond the hypothesis that it in-

volves a series of intentional choices and proposes

that unethical decision-making may be a product of

non-conscious cognitive processes.

I explore this hypothesis in three stages. In the first

stage, I ask individuals with business experience and

individuals without business experience to recall both

moral- and strategy-related issues in a morally

ambiguous business dilemma. In the second stage, I

examine how individuals both inside and outside of

business define moral-related issues and distinguish

them from strategy-related issues. I also measure the

magnitude at which individuals include these issues

in their open-ended responses to a hypothetical,

morally ambiguous situation. In the third stage, I ask

individuals with business experience and advanced

business training to explicitly rate the moral-relatedness

of several issues that are regularly faced in complex

business decision-making.

Models of moral cognition in business

Unethical cognition and behavior in organizations

have been partially attributed to person-based char-

acteristics. For example, Trevino and Youngblood

(1990) found that people at higher stages of moral

development (Kohlberg, 1969) were more likely

than those at lower stages to behave ethically in

Journal of Business Ethics (2009) 84:237–258 � Springer 2008DOI 10.1007/s10551-008-9706-3

a business situation. They recommended that build-

ing an ethical work environment should involve

organizations’ ‘‘attempt to attract individuals of high

integrity’’ (p. 384). Similarly, some investigations

(Fraedrich and Ferrell, 1992) and theoretical models

(Hunt and Vitell, 1986) have proposed that one’s

personal moral philosophy affected ethical decision-

making. Others have laid blame on context-related

variables. For example, Jones (1991) proposed that

characteristics of the issue under consideration,

including the magnitude of its consequences, social

consensus that the act is good or evil, and immediacy

and proximity of the moral issue, affected the likeli-

hood that individuals would make moral judgments.

The business domain itself has also been examined

as the origin of differences in moral cognition and

behavior. For example, Armstrong (1987) found that

accountants’ moral reasoning was significantly lower

than that of current college students, despite their

equivalent education levels. Similarly, business majors

were more tolerant towards ethically questionable

business practices than were non-business majors.

The strength of this relationship was directly related

to students’ length of business training (Hawkins and

Cocanougher, 1972). Lastly, business managers rated

ethically questionable practices as being more ethical

than did business students, lawyers, and law students –

in that order (Stevens et al., 1989).

This investigation acknowledges that moral

cognition and behavior in the business domain are

affected by person-, issue-, and situation-based

attributes; however, it also acknowledges that these

factors do not entirely explain unethical decision-

making. Instead, it proposes that moral cognition,

particularly the awareness of moral issues (Rest,

1986), is the product of non-conscious processes

related to the attention to and retrieval of stimuli.

This theory is not novel (e.g., Butterfield et al.,

2000; Gioia, 1992; Reynolds, 2006b); however, it

has not been empirically tested. In addition to

questioning the factors affecting moral cognition, the

previous studies have not identified the origins of

these domain-based differences within the moral

cognition framework. Each investigation cited above

focuses on moral reasoning or judgment (Kohlberg,

1984), which comprise the second component of a

four-component process towards moral action (Rest,

1986, 1994). None examined the prior step, moral

awareness.

In light of these unanswered questions, the

current investigation has two primary goals: (1) to

further explore the relationship between experience

in the business domain and moral cognition,

specifically moral awareness, and (2) to examine the

cognitive mechanisms that operate within this

context.

The four-component model and moral awareness

Rest’s (1986, 1994) four-component model tra-

verses the steps that lead to moral behavior. These

include (1) moral sensitivity, (2) moral reasoning, (3)

moral motivation, and (4) moral character. Moral

sensitivity was Rest’s label for Component 1; how-

ever, moral awareness will be used in the present

investigation because the cognitive basis used for the

main hypotheses stems from research on cognitive

awareness (Fiske and Taylor, 1991) and because all

other investigations within the business domain have

also used this label (cf., Butterfield et al., 2000;

Reynolds, 2006a).

According to Rest (1986, 1994), moral awareness

is the first step in the moral action process and is

defined as recognizing the effects of one’s actions on

others. It also includes an awareness of the different

lines of action available and how each of these lines

affects the parties involved (Rest, 1994). In contrast,

(2) moral reasoning is the judgment of what

potential action line is most moral and just. Moral

reasoning consists of a series of six developmental

stages that describes the level of cognitive com-

plexity one applies when making moral judgments

(Kohlberg, 1969). These range from the overly

simplistic preconventional stages (i.e., Stages 1 and 2)

where the decision-maker reasons based on rewards

or punishments from an authority figure to the

postconventional stages (i.e., Stages 5 and 6) where the

decision-maker reasons apart from an authority fig-

ure’s wishes and understands that moral decisions

involve relativism. Moral motivation (3) is the

degree of commitment that one has to the moral

action (once it is identified during moral reasoning)

and (4) moral character is having the courage and

initiative to act upon this commitment (Rest et al.,

1999).

Rest’s definition of moral awareness is slightly

different from how others conceive of this component,

238 Jennifer Jordan

as well as how it is operationalized in the current

investigation. Some define moral awareness as solely

a recognition-based ability, conceptualizing the

construct as the ability to detect moral issues within a

broader, amoral context (e.g., Hebert et al., 1990).

However, even if the moral issues are recognized

and elicit an affective-response, if an individual

places little or no importance on them, it is doubtful

that they will be factored into decision-making.

Instead, they will likely be supplanted by other issues

that the individual considers to be more relevant to

the task (Hunt and Vitell, 1992). Theoretically, if

one does not recognize a moral issue, he or she will

be unable to factor the issue into the judgment

process (Fiske and Taylor, 1991; Gioia, 1992),

leading to a poor prognosis for the likelihood of later

moral action (Jones, 1991; Rest, 1986, 1994). For

this reason the current investigation defines moral

awareness as both an ability to recognize the moral

issues in a morally ambiguous situation and the

ascription of importance to these issues (Karcher,

1996; Shaub et al., 1993; Sparks and Hunt, 1998).

Schemas and moral awareness

Researchers have proposed, but not tested, the role

of social cognition (Butterfield et al., 2000; Gioia,

1992) in one’s awareness of moral issues. From a

social cognition perspective, recognizing and

recalling moral issues (i.e., demonstrating moral

awareness) require one’s selective attention to,

encoding of, and recall of moral-related stimuli

(Simon, 1945).

Most situations present large amounts of stimuli,

making it necessary for an individual to attend to

some stimuli while ignoring other stimuli (Fiske and

Taylor, 1991; Simon, 1945). Stimuli that is salient

and most likely to be encoded into memory is that

which is compatible with the individual’s existing

schema for a situation (Anderson and Pearson, 1984;

Taylor and Crocker, 1981). A schema is ‘‘a cognitive

structure [representing] knowledge about a concept

or type of stimulus’’ (Fiske and Taylor, 1991, p. 98)

and is developed based on one’s goals, motivations,

and social experiences related to a given situation

(Ashforth and Fried, 1988; Fiske and Taylor, 1991).

Schemas provide an ‘‘ideational scaffolding for

assimilating information’’ (Anderson et al., 1983,

p. 272; Ausubel, 1963) that structures memory, aids

in recall, and edits unimportant or irrelevant data.

Stimuli that is schema-relevant takes less time to

encode (Hemsley and Marmurek, 1982; Steffensen

et al., 1979; Stern et al., 1984), which is the process

by which external stimuli is represented in the mind

(Fiske and Taylor, 1991). It also takes less time to

search for (Markus, 1977; Taylor et al., 1978). And

it is more likely than irrelevant stimuli to be given

attention, processed (Goetz et al., 1983; Wyer et al.,

1982), remembered, or recalled (Anderson and

Pichert, 1978; Brewer and Trayens, 1981; Kardash

et al., 1988). Anderson and Pichert (1978) found

that schemas are more likely to influence the recall of

information than to affect its initial encoding. In

their seminal study on the effect of schemas on

information encoding, recall, and retention, the

researchers found that if provided with a specific

schema via perspective-taking instructions prior to

reading a passage, the schema affected what infor-

mation was correctly recalled. However, if the

individual was instructed to switch perspectives after

reading the passage and recalling information from

his or her prior perspective, the individual remem-

bered information that he or she was previously

unable to recall but which was relevant to the latter

perspective. The individual also forgot information

that was relevant to the initial perspective.

Consistent with prior research, I predict that in

the current investigation, one’s dominant schema

will effect one’s memory and ability to recall relevant

issues. This recall will manifest itself in two ways: (1)

individuals’ ability to correctly answer fact-based

questions about the moral- and strategy-related

issues in a hypothetical, morally ambiguous vignette

and (2) their inclusion of moral- versus strategy-

related issues when asked to freely generate how

they would respond to a hypothetical morally

ambiguous vignette. Unlike Anderson and Pichert

(1978), I do not randomly assign and manipulate the

dominant schema but rather use the individual’s

professional background to determine schema. The

use of naturalistic schemata, as opposed to one that is

experimentally assigned, has been applied success-

fully in past investigations. For example, using

Anderson and Pichert’s stimulus passage, Goetz et al.

(1983) found that in comparison to real-estate and

psychology students, police officers rated burglar-

related items as more important and directed greater

A Social Cognition Framework for Examining Moral Awareness 239

attention to them, even when explicitly directed to

take the perspective of a potential homebuyer.

Steffensen et al. (1979) found that native Indians and

native Americans read passages that were related to

traditions in home countries faster and retained more

information from those passages than they did those

that were related to foreign traditions.

Disadvantageous schema application

Schemas are not always advantageous. Possessing

dominant schemas for a particular situation makes one

more likely to narrowly focus on information that

confirms the existing schema and to devote a reduced

proportion of attention to all information, increasing

the likelihood that important information will be

suppressed in cognitive processing (von Hippel et al.,

1993). In addition, schemas can cause distortion,

meaning that the information presented can be

interpreted within the context of the dominant

schema, even if it is not the most appropriate one for

the situation (Ashforth and Fried, 1988; Steffensen

et al., 1979; Zadny and Gerard, 1974).

In managerial situations, specifically, one can

expect multiple factors to impinge on one’s deci-

sion-making (Gioia, 1992; Trevino, 1986). This

complex environment increases the likelihood that

schemas will dictate the selective attention to

information and that some information will be fil-

tered out of the process or forgotten (Bazerman,

2001; Ocasio, 1997). Businesspeople are ‘‘con-

fronted with far more stimuli then they can fully

comprehend and those stimuli are often ambiguous,

complex, and even contradictory’’ (Finkelstein and

Hambrick, 1996, p. 41). The moral issues within

these complex business situations must compete for

attention against strategy-related issues (Child,

1972). In business, where professional responsibility

is often viewed as contributing to shareholder wealth

(Friedman, 1970; Sundaram and Inkpen, 2004) and

executives predominantly send messages about the

financial goal-orientation of the organization relative

to ethics-related messages (Trevino and Brown,

2004; Weaver et al., 1999a), one’s business schema is

likely to contain significant strategy-related associa-

tions. As Gioia (1992) proposes, schemas offer

explanations for why experts might overlook factors

that less experienced individuals consider obvious.

Two questions that I seek to answer in this investi-

gation are (1) what do individuals in the business

domain consider to be moral- versus strategy-related

issues and (2) how does this distinction affect their

recall and focus during decision-making?

Previous research on social cognition and moral awareness

Several prior studies have proposed the relationship

between schemas and moral awareness but have not

empirically examined this relationship. For example,

a former recall analyst at Ford Motor Company

wrote about the prior muting of emotion that took

place during his socialization at the organization,

eventually leading him to vote against recalling the

infamously dangerous Pinto (Gioia, 1992). Gioia

called on the social cognitive concept of schemas,

and more specifically scripts, to explain his behavior.

He wrote that, ‘‘my own schematized (scripted)

knowledge influenced me to perceive recall issues in

terms of the prevailing decision environment and to

unconsciously overlook key features of the Pinto

case, mainly because they did not fit an existing

script.’’ (p. 385). He used this explanation in lieu of

competing explanations like a lack of strong personal

values, intimidation by company superiors, adher-

ence to a utilitarian ethical system, and low moral

development. Scripts and schemas are closely related

in that scripts are specialized schemas that in addition

to containing a framework to understand events, also

contain information on appropriate behaviors and

patterns of acting (Abelson, 1981).

Like Gioia (1992), Butterfield et al. (2000)

evoked a social cognition framework to explain their

theory and findings but did not utilize such a

framework in their methodology. Within social

cognition’s assertion that categories that are fre-

quently primed2 are more accessible and more likely

to influence the interpretation of ambiguous data,

the researchers conceptualized moral awareness as

the situation where individuals direct attention to

incoming moral-related stimuli and label it as such.

Within the broader four-component process (Rest,

1986), Butterfield et al. (2000) conceived that

approaching an ambiguous situation with a moral, as

opposed to an amoral script, triggered the processes

necessary for moral judgment. The authors did not

actually test this proposition beyond examining

how framing an issue using moral-related terms

like integrity, propriety, and misrepresentation affected

240 Jennifer Jordan

the evocation of a moral schema. In partial support

of their theory, they found that in some contexts,

using moral-related language evoked greater recog-

nition of the moral issues, in effect, priming a moral

schema. A major difference between Butterfield

et al.’s investigation and the current study was the

method used to code responses. Butterfield et al.

used a dichotomous coding scheme, meaning

responses were coded as either containing or not con-

taining a moral issue. They operationalized moral

issues as those that involved moral or legal concerns,

broadly defined. The authors did not specify how

they defined what was or was not a moral issue.

Reynolds (2006b) agrees with Gioia’s (1992) and

Butterfield et al’s (2000) connection between

schematic processes and moral awareness but unlike

his contemporaries, approaches the situation from a

neurocognitive framework. In his theoretical paper,

Reynolds (2006b) calls upon the neurocognitive

process of reflexive pattern matching to explain the

initial stages of moral cognition. He writes that

electrochemical signals produced by stimuli from

the outside environment are compared and mat-

ched with existing prototypes in the brain. These

prototypes allow the decision-maker to identify

stimuli and react accordingly. When a situation

containing ethical issues is confronted, the neural

system automatically searches for prototypes (i.e., a

reflexive pattern matching system) that match the

stimuli. If the pattern matches a prototype related

to an ethical issue, that information is then trans-

mitted to consciousness, allowing the decision-

maker to consciously apply ethical rules and

appropriate reactions. However, in order for ethics-

related reactions and processes to be enacted, the

incoming stimuli must match existing ethical pro-

totypes in the brain. Thus, the system is dependent

on the existence of such prototypes. Given that

prototypes are developed from prior sensory

experiences, it can be assumed that the type and

magnitude of former experience and exposure

shapes the presence and nature of the existing

prototype. An individual with a paucity of expe-

rience with ethical situations or a person who has

confronted ethical situations in environments where

they are treated and labeled as non-ethical issues or

simply ignored, would be less likely to contain

developed ethical prototypes that aid in moral

cognition and action. The use of euphemistic or

unemotional language to describe ethical issues is

one example of how one can have muted or

underdeveloped ethical prototypes (Gioia, 1992).

Reynolds (2006b) asserts that a significant part of

the ethical decision-making process is non-

conscious and involves pattern matching and

reflexive judgments. In Reynolds’ (2006a) empirical

investigation, he does not test for the existence or

triggering of prototypes and instead examines issue-

specific factors and ethical predispositions that affect

individuals’ moral awareness.

The current investigation extends the above

body of work on moral awareness in two ways.

First, using predetermined dimensions, it asks

individuals with business experience to define what

dimensions do or do not qualify as moral-related

issues. I acknowledge that this approach does not

provide a definitive operationalization of what is

and is not a moral issue; however, in an effort to

understand how individuals approach ethical deci-

sion-making in an applied context, it is an infor-

mative and contextually appropriate methodology.

Second, unlike Reynolds (2006a), it does not

explicitly tell participants that moral issues are

contained in the vignette and relies on their ability

to freely detect these issues. This paradigm is more

similar to the real world decision-making context,

where moral issues are unlikely to be accompanied

by red flags announcing their presence.

Business schemas and moral awareness

The research above suggests that it is the interaction

between possessing both a well-defined business

schema and being confronted with a business

dilemma that elicits the decreased processing of

information not considered to be part of that schema

(including that considered to be moral-related

[Armstrong, 1987; Hawkins and Cocanougher,

1972; Stevens et al., 1989]). In situations where

one’s cognitive processing is familiar and routine,

automatic, as opposed to controlled, attentional

processing dominates an individual’s cognition

(Shiffrin and Schneider, 1977). The result is that

‘‘decisions are triggered by environmental stimuli

that is ‘automatically’ attended to’’ (Ocasio, 1997,

p. 190). As possessing a dominant schema for a sit-

uation decreases one’s encoding of irrelevant infor-

mation but does not increase encoding of relevant

information (von Hippel et al., 1993), it is not

A Social Cognition Framework for Examining Moral Awareness 241

expected that possessing a strategy-related business

schema will increase one’s awareness and focus on

strategy-related issues but rather that it will inhibit

attention to moral-related issues. This statement does

not imply that business expertise offers no advantage

for the decision-maker. In fact, quite the contrary.

Expertise produces both strategies for seeing patterns

in complex data (e.g., Chase and Simon, 1973) and

tacit knowledge for dealing with specialized prob-

lems (Sternberg and Wagner, 1985); however, in

comparison to those without expertise, expertise is

not expected to increase recall of schema-relevant

issues. As explained above, will also decrease recall of

schema-irrelevant issues.

Hypothesis 1 Business managers will demonstrate

poorer recall of and processing time for moral-

related issues in a morally ambiguous business

situation than will academics.

Schemas go beyond affecting stimuli attention and

recall. They also affect individuals’ reactions to the

social world, including their judgments (e.g., Bargh

and Thein, 1985; Pillutla and Chen, 1999; von Hippel

et al., 1993). Selective attention and recall are theo-

retically necessary for moral awareness (Butterfield

et al., 2000; Gioia, 1992). Consistent with this theory,

the current investigation proposes that the ability to

recall the moral-related issues in a situation is needed

in order to demonstrate moral awareness. It also

proposes that the possession and subsequent applica-

tion of a strategy-related business schema reduces

moral awareness in morally ambiguous situations. It is

not expected that merely presenting a business-related

dilemma to a person without the socialization expe-

riences necessary to produce a well-developed strat-

egy-related business schema will elicit such an effect.

Ocasio (1997) theorized that organizational decision-

makers possess schemas that comprise the problems

and threats that they or their industry have repeatedly

encountered. These schemas are responsible for

directing attention and subsequently, for how strate-

gies and solutions to problems are designed. Schema-

relevant information is more salient and cognitively

proximal to the decision-maker, making it more

likely to be included in decision-making about ethical

issues (Jones, 1991). Businesspeople have more

experience with strategy-related problems and threats

than moral-related ones. This processing pattern leads

to the prediction that business managers (i.e., those

with a dominant schema for the situation) will dem-

onstrate a lesser awareness of moral-related issues

when confronted with a morally ambiguous business

situation.

Existing findings in the empirical literature sup-

port this hypothesis. For example, managers and

non-business students applied a lower-level of moral

reasoning (Kohlberg, 1969) when responding to

business than to non-business dilemmas (Carpendale

and Krebs, 1992; Weber, 1990). In addition, the

students displayed higher levels of moral reasoning

when they believed that their responses would be

evaluated by a philosophy, as opposed to a man-

agement professor (Carpendale and Krebs, 1992).

Lastly, Tenbrunsel and Messick (1999) found that

business students were less likely to demonstrate

cooperative behavior when they construed a situa-

tion within a business frame as opposed to an ethics

frame because, ‘‘a business frame produce[d] a cal-

culative cost-benefit process…’’ (p. 700) and ‘‘moral

choices are synonymous with cooperative choices’’

(p. 699).

I also hypothesize that individuals without a

dominant and relevant schema for the situation will

demonstrate no such preference for moral- or strat-

egy-related issues and may, in fact, attend equally to

both domains. This latter point is consistent with

research demonstrating that when no dominant

schema is available, individuals attend to all infor-

mation equally – and better to information that is

considered by some as ‘‘schema irrelevant’’ (Goetz

et al., 1983). Thus, I predict that academics, who do

not possess dominant, well-developed business

schemas will attend equally to both moral- and

strategy-related issues.

Hypothesis 2a Business managers will demonstrate

less awareness of moral-related issues than will

academics.Hypothesis 2b Business managers will demonstrate

less awareness for moral-related dimensions com-

pared to strategy-related dimensions, whereas,

academics will attend equally to both dimensions.

Schemas are developed through direct experience,

communications, and observations about schema-

relevant properties (Fiske and Taylor, 1991; Gioia,

1992). Socialization is the process by which individuals

242 Jennifer Jordan

acquire norms for appropriate conduct in specialized

situations. Socialization, either direct or via social

learning, is responsible for inculcating new members

into an organizational culture and forming their values

and beliefs. The relationship between socialization

processes and schema development gives socialization

an important role in fostering organizational culture

and individual cognition and behavior. In short,

developing organizational-relevant schemas aid indi-

viduals in acclimating to their environments and

reducing role ambiguities (Ashforth and Fried, 1988).

Socialization outcomes within organizations are largely

dependent on factors such as who a group considers

primary stakeholders and the reality and challenges

inherent to its functioning environment (Schein,

2004).

Socialization also plays a significant role in

communicating norms about moral cognition and

behavior (Schein, 2004; Trevino and Youngblood,

1990). Moral principles, which are internalized

social norms, develop through life experiences

(Kohlberg, 1984), including social interactions

(Eisenberg et al., 2006). This investigation considers

professional socialization as a primary medium for

developing schemas involved in ethical decision-

making. Thus, one would expect that the greater a

businessperson’s socialization within the business

context, the less his or her moral awareness in that

context would be.

Hypothesis 3 Greater socialization within the busi-

ness domain will negatively affect individuals’

moral awareness.

Measuring moral awareness

Many moral awareness instruments present respon-

dents with vignettes that contain moral issues and

prompt them to identify those issues that they think

are important in the situation (e.g., Bebeau et al.,

1985; Butterfield et al., 2000; Hebert et al., 1990;

Shaub et al., 1993; Sparks and Hunt, 1998). All

moral awareness instruments confront the similar

challenge of operationalizing what is considered a

moral-related issue and creating criteria that can be

used to evaluate when a respondent recognizes a

moral-related issue.

Defining moral issues

Central to the study of moral awareness is the

question of what is and is not a moral-related issue.

Using a profession-based code of conduct to

identify relevant and agreed-upon moral issues

(e.g., Hebert et al., 1990; Karcher, 1996) is

impractical for the general business domain. For

one, no code exists. In addition, if an instrument’s

practical purpose is to provide prediction about

individuals’ decision-making when faced with

morally ambiguous dilemmas, it is insufficient to

measure only the awareness of explicitly defined,

profession-based moral issues. For example, Gioia

(1992) noted that according to both legal (i.e.,

within the framework of the law) and ethical (i.e.,

in accordance with professional standards) criteria,

his decision to not recall the defective Pinto from

America’s roadways was blameless. He however

questioned if his behavior could have been judged

as moral – here using the term to refer to ‘‘adhering

to some higher standards of inner conscience and

conviction about the ‘right’ action to take’’ (p.

384). Other researchers have replaced or supple-

mented the use of an ethics code with expert

consensus (e.g., Bebeau et al., 1985; Butterfield

et al., 2000; Sparks and Hunt, 1998). This approach

is used in the current investigation.

Moral versus amoral issues in management

Business-related values and foci have been divided

into two distinct categories. For example, Agle et al.

(1999) divided CEO values into those that were

profit-maximization-firm-centered and those that were

other-regarding-system-centered (Wood, 1994). They

found that stakeholders that were part of the tradi-

tion ‘‘production function view of the firm’’ were

more salient to executives than were entities of a

more ‘‘expanded stakeholder view of the firm,’’ like

governments and communities. The authors des-

cribed this as a type of stakeholder class system in

which some stakeholders were more privileged than

others. Similarly, Weaver et al. (1999a) divided

topics of executive-interest into intrinsically valuable

(e.g., ‘‘doing the right thing’’ and ‘‘seeking the good

of society’’) and performance oriented (e.g., ‘‘finances,

strategy, and operational problems’’). They found

that commitments to the latter category were related

to the use of easily decoupled ethics communications

strategies in the workplace – meaning those that

A Social Cognition Framework for Examining Moral Awareness 243

were not extensively integrated into corporate

communications and the organizational environ-

ment (Weaver et al., 1999b).

Both Agle et al.’s (1999) and Weaver et al.’s

(1999a, b) divisions are based on explicit theories

and not empirical data or implicit theories. In fact,

most divisions of foci in the business domain have

not based these categorizations on empirically de-

rived data. I believe that it is important to under-

stand how individuals who work in the business

domain define and distinguish moral and amoral

issues. Thus, the current investigation takes this

division one step further and applies both a data-

driven (i.e., how responses from individuals with

and without experience in the management domain

factor together on a moral- and strategy-related

dimension) and implicit theory-based (i.e., what

individuals with experience in the business domain

consider to constitute a moral issue) method for

defining moral-related issues. It is acknowledged

that this technique does not provide a definitive

definition of what is and is not a moral-related issue;

however, I do believe that it is elucidating to

business scholars and practitioners to understand

how individuals with expertise and training in the

business domain define moral issues. I also

acknowledge that this approach would likely result

in different categorizations or divisions if another

population, such as philosophers or theologians, was

used as a sample for defining and distinguishing

moral from amoral issues.

Method

Participants

Participants were 86 business managers and 61 aca-

demic professors.

The business managers were members of a large

enterprise software corporation based in the Eastern

U.S. One hundred and thirty-eight individuals were

contacted and 63% completed all study-related tasks.

These individuals were stationed across the country and

were at the middle-level of their organization’s man-

agement hierarchy. Seventy-three percent were male

and 84% were Caucasian. On average, 88% had

received a bachelors degree or its equivalent, were

approximately 40-years-old (M = 39.83, SD = 8.15),

had spent 3.75 years (SD = 1.71) with their current

employer, and 11.73 years (SD = 7.26) in their current

profession.

The academic professors were junior faculty in

the areas of liberal arts and sciences, communica-

tions, and education at a large public university in

the Southwestern U.S. All junior faculty with a valid

e-mail address (N = 270) were contacted and asked

to participate. Twenty-three percent completed all

study-related tasks (n = 61). Professors of religion,

theology, philosophy, and justice-studies were not

contacted based on concerns that their training and

practice may have made them hyper-aware of moral-

related issues. Individuals with any business-related

training or experience were also excluded from the

sample. Forty-five percent were male and 74% were

Caucasian. On average, all had received a doctoral

degree or its equivalent, were approximately 44-

years-old (M = 44.26, SD = 9.25), had spent

4.15 years (SD = 2.10) with their current employer,

and 12.34 years (SD = 8.39) in their current

profession.

Junior professors were used as the non-business

practitioner comparison group for several reasons:

(1) they were of similar ages to those in the business

group (M = 44.26 vs. 39.83), (2) they had statisti-

cally equivalent number of years with their employer

(M = 4.15 vs. 3.75) and in their profession (M =

12.34 vs. 11.73) as did the business group, (3) there

was no theoretical reason to expect that they pos-

sessed a greater level of knowledge or ability in

moral-related matters.

Procedures

Participants completed all study materials via the

Internet from their offices so that they would be in

an environment that primed them for occupation-

related cues. After logging on, participants were

asked to read a vignette and complete a related task,

and to answer several demographic questions. Before

concluding their session, participants also completed

a task measuring their recall of the moral- and

strategy-related issues contained in vignette. They

were unaware that they would be completing the

latter task when they began the session. The recall

task was presented after the moral awareness

instrument in order to avoid priming effects.

244 Jennifer Jordan

Measures

The Moral Awareness in Business Instrument (MABI)

The measure instructed participants to put them-

selves in the role of a committee member within the

corporation featured in one of three vignettes. One

vignette was randomly assigned to each participant.

They were told that the committee was meeting to

discuss the dilemma contained in the vignette and to

indicate the (1) three to five issues they would bring

to this meeting for consideration when deciding

what action to take, (2) why they believed each issue

was important to deciding what course of action to

take, and to (3) rank the importance of each issue.

This procedure was based on the operationalization

of moral awareness as both the recognition and

ascription of importance to moral issues (Karcher,

1996; Shaub et al., 1993; Sparks and Hunt, 1998).

The vignette remained visible during completion

and participants had an unlimited amount of time to

access, browse, and read the vignette while gener-

ating their responses. Participants were unaware of

the ethics-related nature of the project and that the

vignettes they read contained any moral-related

issues.

Vignette selection

The vignettes used in the MABI were pre-tested for

their moral ambiguity and other relevant attributes.

Moral ambiguity was operationalized as the quality

of involving an equivalent magnitude of both moral-

and strategy-related issues (Sparks and Hunt, 1998).

In the pre-testing, participants read eight vignettes,

which were adapted from existing business cases.

Participants were 36 MBA students and 10 doctoral-

level graduate students in the liberal arts.

Participants were instructed to read the eight

vignettes and using an 8-point Likert-scale (1 = not

all to 8 = very much so), rate each on one randomly

assigned between-subjects item and six items that

were administered to all participants. The between-

subjects item asked approximately half of the par-

ticipants (n = 24) how much the vignette contained

of strategic, technical, or profit-focused issues in business.

The remaining half (n = 22) were asked how much

the vignette contained moral, ethical, or human well-

being issues. All participants also rated the vignettes on

their (1) ease of understanding, (2) technical complexity,

(3) realism, (4) seriousness of consequences, (5) familiarity,

and (6) overall quality (cf., Bebeau et al., 1985; Shaub

et al., 1993; Sparks and Hunt, 1998).

In order to be included in the main study, the

vignette had to receive a moderately high (i.e., six or

greater) and equivalent (based on t-test statistics)

rating on the inclusion of both strategy- and moral-

related issues. It also had to receive high ratings on

ease of understanding, realism, seriousness of consequences,

and overall quality and moderate ratings on technical

complexity and familiarity.

The three vignettes chosen involved health care

coverage for retired employees (Health Care Vignette),

the distribution of drugs to a population unable to

afford them (Drug Vignette), and the possibility of lead

poisoning in factory workers (Lead Vignette). These

were the only vignettes of the original eight that met

the necessary criteria – most importantly being the

equal, and moderately high, inclusion of both strat-

egy- and moral-related issues (Health Care:

t(44) = 1.34; p = 0.19; Drug: t(44) = 1.37; p = 0.18;

Lead: t(42) = 1.54; p = 0.13). Appendix A contains

one of the three MABI vignettes.

Scoring the MABI

Using an 8-point Likert scale (1 = almost entirely to

8 = not at all), two trained coders scored participants’

responses based on their inclusion of the following

dimensions: (1) financial profitability, (2) viability,

longevity, or competitive stance, (3) legal culpability, (4)

public reputation or image, (5) the well-being (financial,

physical, or emotional) of the powerful individuals

involved, and (6) well-being (financial, physical, or emo-

tional) of the non-powerful individuals involved. These

dimensions were generated both by theory, that is by

looking at what dimensions other researchers have

used as rubrics for differentiating managerial values

and awareness (e.g., Agle et al., 1999; Butterfield

et al., 2000) and in looking at the actual responses

generated by individuals in completing the task.

Using explicit theory and actual data to design a

coding rubric are techniques recommended in the

literature (Boyatzis, 1998).

Participants’ scores on this task were calculated by

first reverse-scoring the rank and ratings assigned to

each issue on the six dimensions so that a higher rank

and rating corresponded to a greater importance or

involvement of the dimension in the response.

Unweighted dimension sums were calculated by

summing the coders’ ratings across each of the

A Social Cognition Framework for Examining Moral Awareness 245

participant’s responses without consideration of the

participant’s assigned rank. Weighted sums were

calculated by multiplying each dimension score by

the rank assigned to the response, with a higher score

indicating both a greater inclusion of that dimension

in the response, as well as a greater importance

placed on the issue. Based on the definition of moral

awareness as both the recognition and ascription of

importance to a moral-related issue (Karcher, 1996;

Shaub et al., 1993; Sparks and Hunt, 1998), the

weighted scores were considered better indicators of

the construct; however, because rank did not convey

magnitude of difference, unweighted scores were

also analyzed.

Implicit dimension categorizations

Individuals with business experience rated the six

MABI coding dimensions to determine their im-

plicit theories of moral- versus strategy-related issues.

These individuals were asked to rate the six

dimensions on the extent to which each was moral-

related.

Participants

159 MBA students from a private business school in

the Northeastern U.S. completed the questionnaire.

One hundred and one were first-year students and

58 were second-year students. One hundred and

eighteen participants were male and they had an

average of 5.89 years (SD = 2.71) of professional

business experience prior to matriculation in the

MBA program. I used graduate business students for

three reasons: (1) these individuals had significant

experience in the business domain prior to matric-

ulation, (2) the business school environment pro-

vided a controlled setting where I could be

confident that second-year students were exposed to

more business training and socialization than first-

year students, and (3) operationalizing ‘‘greater

experience’’ within an actual organizational setting is

complex and unreliable. Outside of a business

school, it is difficult to define what constitutes

‘‘greater socialization,’’ since individuals can be

exposed to a variety of different responsibilities and

experiences within the same amount of time

depending on their division, role, or individual

ambitions.

Procedures

Using an 8-point Likert Scale (1 = very much so to

8 = not at all), participants rated six different issues

that are involved in complex management decisions on the

extent to which each was moral-related. The MABI

coding dimensions were presented and each was

accompanied by an explicit definition. In order to

avoid creating demand characteristics, the definition

of moral-related was not provided and participants

were instructed to use their existing implicit con-

ceptions when assigning ratings.

Data analysis

Based on the dimensions that loaded on to each latent

factor that emerged from the exploratory factor anal-

ysis (EFA) of the participants’ responses to the MABI, a

confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was applied to the

MBA students’ moral-related ratings to assess the

validity of the categorization of the dimensions. It was

predicted that the latent factor structure found in the

Main Study participants’ responses to the MABI

would correspond with the implicit theories that MBA

students held about the moral-relatedness of the

dimensions. It was also predicted that MBA students

would perceive those dimensions that loaded on to

one of the factors from the Main Study participants’

responses as significantly more moral-related than those

that loaded on to a second factor.

Vignette-related recall task

Approximately fifteen minutes after reading the

vignette and immediately after answering the

demographic questions, the Main Study participants

were asked a combination of ten true/false and

multiple-choice questions referring to material

contained in the MABI vignette. These questions

were designed to assess the retention and recall of

moral- versus strategy-related issues in the vignette.

As stated above, the ability to correctly recall some

issues and not others is indicative of the accessibility

of information in one’s schema (Anderson and

Pichert, 1978; Goetz et al., 1983).

Prior to administering these questions to partici-

pants, they were also pre-tested for both their moral-

and strategy-relatedness. A sample of business and

non-business graduate students from the pool of

participants who pre-tested the vignettes was

246 Jennifer Jordan

instructed to read the vignette and indicate if the

question asked about a moral-related issue, a strategy-

related issue, or both. Those questions that the

majority considered involving either a moral- or

strategy-related issue were then characterized as

such. Those items that were rated by the majority as

incorporating both a moral- and strategy-related issue

were either discarded or rewritten so that their

contents were unambiguous. Based on this rating

scheme, ten questions accompanying each vignette

were considered to test recall of moral- and strategy-

related issues contained in the dilemma. An example

of a strategy-related multiple-choice question for the

Drug Vignette (with the correct response included in

italics) was, ‘‘Haremann Labs is currently focusing its

financial and human resources on developing new

drugs.’’ Whereas, a moral-related multiple-choice

question was, ‘‘In addition to causing illness in

humans, Amazon River Flies have caused problems

in South American villages because they breed in

regions that have abundant sources of vegetation.’’ There

was no difference in the average number of words in

the moral-related (M = 15.93, SD = 8.61) versus

the strategy-related (M = 17.13, SD = 6.13) ques-

tions (t(14) = )0.539, p = 0.60).

These questions assessed how schemas may operate

to affect individuals’ moral awareness (Hemsley and

Marmurek, 1982; Stern et al., 1984). One’s schema for

a situation determines what is subsequently recalled

from memory (Anderson and Pichert, 1978). During

this portion of the testing session, the vignette was not

available for viewing and in order to assess recall speed,

participants’ response-times to each question were

recorded with accuracy of 0.10 of a second. Response

time was used as an indicator of the accessibility of the

information in the person’s dominant schema (cf.,

Steffensen et al., 1979). Participants received a score for

both the number of moral- and strategy-related ques-

tions they answered correctly. Each had a maximum

score of five.

Data analyses & results

Vignette-related questions

Hypothesis 1 predicted that in comparison to aca-

demics, managers would exhibit poorer recall and

slower response-times when responding to the

moral-related but not the strategy-related questions

associated with the vignette. In support of this pre-

diction, the between-group difference for the

number of strategy-related questions answered cor-

rectly was not significant (F(1, 132) = 2.92,

p = 0.09), whereas the number of correct answers

on moral-related questions was (F(1, 129) = 4.16,

p < 0.05), with managers answering fewer correctly

than academics.

One-way ANOVAs were also run for average

response times for moral- and strategy-related

questions by domain of practice, excluding cases

identified as outliers.3 As was also predicted by

Hypothesis 1, these analyses revealed significant dif-

ferences on the average time spent on each moral-

related question (F(1, 132) = 4.20, p < 0.05), with

managers taking a greater amount of time than

academics. Differences on the overall average time

(F(1, 132) = 1.75, p = 0.19) and average time spent

on the strategy-related questions (F(1, 132) = 1.18,

p = 0.28) by domain of practice were not signifi-

cant. Table I contains descriptive statistics for total

score, number of correct moral- and strategy-related

questions, response-times for all questions, and

response-times for moral- and strategy-related

questions for all participants, as well as by domain of

practice.

An alternative hypothesis is that the moral-related

questions were more complex than the strategy-

related questions and therefore took all participants

longer to read. I ruled out this possibility by ana-

lyzing the time required by all participants to answer

the moral- versus strategy-related questions. While it

was true that all participants answered the strategy-

related questions in a shorter amount of time, this

difference was not above that predicted by chance

(t(137) = 1.90; p = 0.06). As discussed above, the

average word counts of the moral- and strategy-re-

lated questions were statistically equivalent.

MABI

Coders’ ratings

Coders’ ratings were highly convergent. Using

Cronbach’s a, inter-rater reliability was a = 0.93.

And the average correlation between the coders’

ratings across the six dimensions was r = 0.91. Based

A Social Cognition Framework for Examining Moral Awareness 247

on this high convergence, individual coder’s scores

were averaged together for all subsequent analyses.

EFA of dimensions

The six dimension sums were subjected to a principal

components analysis (Dunteman, 1989). An oblique

rotation method (i.e., oblimin) was used because of

the theoretically plausible correlation between the

resulting factors. Latent factors left of the scree plot’s

curve inflection (Cattell, 1966) were retained and

based on the sample size (N = 141), items with a

loading of 0.5 and greater were considered important

contributors to that factor (Stevens, 1992).

The first latent factor (eigenvalue = 2.83; 35.36%

of the variance) comprised the dimensions of financial

profitability (0.880); viability, longevity, or competitive

stance (0.848); and the well-being of the powerful indi-

viduals (0.814). Given the nature of the items that

comprised Factor 1, this factor was labeled shareholder

and corporate concerns (CORP). The second latent

factor (eigenvalue = 1.66; 20.73% of the variance)

comprised the items well-being of the non-powerful

individuals (0.873), legal culpability (0.617), and public

reputation or image (0.554) and was labeled non-

shareholding stakeholder and responsibility concerns

(STAKE). Numbers in parentheses denote factor

loadings.

CFA of dimensions based on implicit theories

Based on the two-factor oblique structure that

emerged from the responses to the MABI, structural

equation modeling was used to conduct a two-factor

CFA on the MBA students’ implicit ratings of the six

dimensions. As predicted, the indices converged,

demonstrating adequate model fit. Fit indices and

standardized parameter estimates for the model are

presented in Table II. Model parameters were all

significant (i.e., p < 0.05) and explained substantial

amounts of item variance (R2 ranged from 0.18 to

0.50).

In addition, as was also predicted, it was found that

the dimensions that loaded on the second factor were

rated as being significantly more moral-related than

TABLE I

Descriptive statistics for number of questions answered correctly and response time by domain of practice

Source Mean SD N F

Total score 8.12 1.48 130

Manager 7.82 1.50 73 6.83**

Academic 8.49 1.38 57

Moral-related questions 3.81 1.05 131

Manager 3.64 1.07 73 4.16*

Academic 4.02 1.00 58

Strategy-related questions 4.29 0.87 134

Manager 4.18 0.96 74 2.92

Academic 4.43 0.74 60

Average Time (in seconds)a 16.84 7.18 134

Manager 17.58 7.43 73 1.75

Academic 15.94 6.82 61

Average time for moral-related questions 18.96 9.32 134

Manager 20.42 10.38 74 4.20*

Academic 17.14 7.54 60

Average time for strategy-related questions 14.49 5.88 134

Manager 14.99 5.88 73 1.18

Academic 13.88 5.87 61

aStatistics relating to average total, moral, and strategy times exclude outliers.

*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01.

248 Jennifer Jordan

those that loaded on the first factor (t(159) = )9.568,

p < 0.001). This finding provided empirical support

that the non-shareholding stakeholder and responsibilities

factor (and the individual dimensions that comprised

it) was more moral-related and the shareholder and

corporate concerns factor (and the individual dimensions

that comprised it) was more strategy-related. Based

on results from the EFA and CFA, the dimensions

that loaded on to the non-shareholding stakeholder and

responsibilities (i.e., well-being of the non-powerful indi-

viduals, legal culpability, and public reputation or image)

and the shareholder and corporate concerns (i.e., financial

profitability; viability, longevity, or competitive stance; and

the well-being of the powerful individuals) factors were

then averaged together to create two composite

variables for use in subsequent analyses.

Once again, it is acknowledged that while the

items loading on to the non-shareholding stakeholder

and responsibilities dimension were considered more

moral-related by an independent sample than were

the items loading on the shareholder and corporate

concerns dimension, that this division between moral-

and strategy-related items is (1) particular to this

population (i.e., a population with a different

background may have perceived the dimensions

differently) and (2) that as done with labeling latent

variables, the labels of moral-related and strategy-related

are based on implicit theories of the two constructs

as well as how my rating participants perceived the

individual items loading on to the two dimensions.

These labels are not intended as all inclusive defi-

nitions of what constitute moral- and strategy-

related dimensions.

Domain-based differences on individual weighted

dimensions

Hypothesis 2a predicted that in comparison to aca-

demics, managers would demonstrate a poorer

awareness of moral-related issues. Using a one-way

ANOVA to examine differences between the two

groups on the six dimension sums, significant differ-

ences were found on the dimensions of public reputation

and image (F(1, 138) = 4.01; p < 0.05), well-being of the

non-powerful (F(1, 138) = 5.44; p < 0.05), and financial

profitability (F(1, 138) = 4.68; p < 0.05) only. These

were in the directions predicted by Hypothesis 2a, with

managers mentioning issues related to public relations

and industry image (M = 31.87; SD = 15.87) and well-

being of the non-powerful (M = 41.51; SD = 25.71),

dimensions that loaded on the non-shareholding stake-

holder and responsibilities factor, less than academics (public

relations: M = 37.13; SD = 14.88; well-being of the non-

powerful: M = 51.63; SD = 25.20), but mentioning

issues related to financial profitability (M = 51.54;

SD = 24.03), a dimension that loaded on the share-

holder and corporate concerns factor, more than academics

(M = 43.58; SD = 18.15). The same significant rela-

tionships were found when the unweighted dimension

sums were used; however, because the weighted sums

were considered better representations of the opera-

tionalization of moral awareness (Sparks and Hunt,

1998), only results using the weighted sums were

reported. All data was run with univariate outliers

excluded from analyses and based on the randomness of

the missing data, missing values were substituted by the

sample means.

TABLE II

Standardized parameter estimates and fit indices for the two-factor model

Item CORP STAKE R2

Financial profitability 0.71 0.50

Viability, longevity, or competitive stance 0.71 0.50

Well-being of the powerful individuals 0.55 0.30

Public reputation or image 0.66 0.43

Legal culpability 0.53 0.29

Well-being of the non-powerful individuals 0.43 0.18

Model x2 df GFI AGFI RMSEA NFI CFI PNFI PGFI

2-Factor, oblique 15.25 8 0.97 0.92 0.07 0.95 0.97 0.51 0.3

A Social Cognition Framework for Examining Moral Awareness 249

Domain-based differences for composite variables

With the shareholder and corporate concerns and non-

shareholding stakeholder and responsibilities composite

variables as the dependent variables, one-way

ANOVAs were performed to examine domain-based

differences. In support of Hypothesis 2a, significant

differences were found on the non-shareholding stake-

holder and responsibilities variable (F(1, 138) = 5.94,

p < 0.05), with managers displaying lower scores

(M = 34.30; SD = 13.97) than academics (M = 39.66;

SD = 11.43) on this composite. As predicted,

between-group differences on the shareholder and cor-

porate concerns variable were not significant (F(1, 138) =

1.37, p = 0.24) (managers: M = 44.49; SD = 17.69;

academics: M = 41.15; SD = 15.51). Schemas

decrease attention to non-conforming stimuli and

do not increase attention to conforming stimuli (von

Hippel et al., 1993).

Within-group differences on composite scores

Hypothesis 2b predicted a within-group difference,

with managers displaying a greater awareness of the

shareholder and corporate concerns variable in compari-

son to the non-shareholding stakeholder and responsibil-

ities variable and academics displaying no difference

between the two variables. Based on this hypothesis,

a mixed-model repeated measures ANOVA was run

using the shareholder and corporate concerns and the non-

shareholding stakeholder and responsibilities composites

as the within-subjects variables and domain of

practice as the between-subjects variable. Green-

house-Geisser adjusted statistics were used and

reported because the data violated assumptions of

sphericity (x2 = 9.30, p = 0.01).

As predicted, the interaction (composite score�domain) effects were significant (F(1, 138) = 5.99,

p < 0.05). Post-hoc analyses of within-subject dif-

ferences on the composite variables, demonstrated

a significant (F(1, 77) = 15.80, p < 0.00) drop

between managers’ focus on the shareholder and cor-

porate concerns variable in comparison to the non-

shareholding stakeholder and responsibilities variable,

whereas the change in focus for academics was not

significant (F(1, 61) = 0.41, p = 0.55). These dif-

ferences were all in the directions predicted by

Hypothesis 2b, with managers placing more emphasis

on the shareholder and corporate concerns variable and

less emphasis on the non-shareholding stakeholder and

responsibilities variable than did academics.

Schema-strength and moral awareness

Hypothesis 3 predicted that a more dominant business

schema, produced via professional socialization,

would reduce individuals’ awareness of moral issues.

In support of the hypothesis that a more dominant

business schema negatively affected moral awareness,

a significant difference was found between the first-

and second-year MBA students’ moral-related ratings

of the dimensions that comprised the two composite

variables during the implicit dimension categoriza-

tion portion of the investigation. Results demon-

strated that in comparison to first-year students

(CORP: M = 3.39; SD = 1.35; STAKE: M = 3.40;

SD = 1.03), second-year students (CORP: M =

4.84; SD = 1.04; STAKE: M = 3.96; SD = 1.11)

had significantly lower perceptions of the moral-

relatedness of all dimensions comprising both of the

composite variables (CORP: F(1, 157) = 4.94,

p < 0.05; STAKE: F(1, 157) = 10.18, p = 0.00).

These findings support the hypothesis that students

with more well-developed business schemas (i.e.,

greater professional socialization) perceived less of a

moral-related component to dimensions involved in

complex management decisions than did those with less

well-developed schemas.

Discussion

Motivated by the theory that schemas affect moral

awareness (Butterfield et al., 2000; Gioia, 1992;

Reynolds, 2006b), this investigation examined the

cognitive mechanisms that affect individuals’ atten-

tion to moral-related issues in morally ambiguous

business situations. The investigation was also moti-

vated by previous studies reporting a negative effect

of management experience and context on moral-

related tendencies (e.g., Armstrong, 1987; Hawkins

and Cocanougher, 1972; Stevens et al., 1989;

Weber, 1990), without providing evidence for

where these differences originated in the four-com-

ponent process towards moral action (Rest, 1986).

The current investigation provided evidence that

managers’ relative lack of attention to moral-related

250 Jennifer Jordan

issues begins prior to the reasoning process, that is,

during Component 1, moral awareness.

Examining the cognitive mechanisms behind

one’s awareness of moral issues was both an exten-

sion of the moral cognition field and a contribution

to the understanding of managerial cognition and

decision-making. Until very recently, the state of the

field was one where responsibility for unethical

cognition and behavior in the business domain was

attributed to the person, situation, or the issue

(Jones, 1991; Trevino, 1986; Trevino and Young-

blood, 1990), rather than to the cognitive mecha-

nisms that operate when one faces a difficult ethical

dilemma. This investigation’s results contribute to

the new body of literature on non-conscious pro-

cesses that affect moral cognition and behavior in

business (e.g., Reynolds, 2006b). It suggests that

businesspeople may exclude moral-related informa-

tion from the decision-making process because of

schema-based cognitive mechanisms that draw

attention and recall abilities away from moral stimuli.

Results of the vignette-related questions support

these hypotheses. Managers spent more time than

academics reading and responding to the moral-

related questions (there was no difference on the

strategy-related questions) and they answered fewer

correctly.

In order to extend the main thesis of the inves-

tigation, the relationship between strength of one’s

business schema and moral awareness was also

examined. The investigation found that in compar-

ison to their more professionally socialized second-

year counterparts, first-year MBA students perceived

a greater moral-relatedness in all dimensions

involved in business decision-making. One could

explain this finding by arguing that perhaps, in

comparison to first-year students, second-year MBA

students had a more complex notion of what was a

moral-related because of increased exposure to a

business ethics class or to a better understanding of

the business landscape. There are two reasons why

this rival hypothesis is doubtful. First, the survey was

administered to second-year students before they

could have completed a business ethics course,

which was a second-year elective course at their

institution. Second, additional analyses were con-

ducted with this same sample. In contrast to their

previous question about how moral-related each of

the dimensions were, the same sample was asked to

rate the strategy-relatedness of the six dimensions. If

the MBA curriculum was indeed reshaping how

individuals perceived traditionally moral-related

issues, then one would expect that there would be an

increase in the strategy-related rating of the dimen-

sions of legal culpability, public reputation or image, and

well-being of the non-powerful individuals involved.

However, this was not what was found. MBAs did

not increase their perceptions of either the strategy-

relatedness of the dimensions comprising the share-

holder and corporate concerns variable (1st years:

M = 6.75, SD = 0.79; 2nd years: M = 6.83; SD =

0.67; F(1, 157) = 0.50, p = 0.48) nor the non-

shareholding stakeholder and responsibilities variable

(1st years: M = 5.67, SD = 1.08; 2nd years:

M = 5.60; SD = 0.96; F(1, 157) = 0.99, p = 0.32).

As explained above, only their view of these issues’

moral-relatedness decreased with increased training.

I chose to ask this separate population, rather than

the Main Study participants, how they perceived the

moral-relatedness of these six dimensions for three

reasons: doing so may have created demand char-

acteristics by signaling to Main Study participants

that (1) at least some of these dimensions should be

seen as moral-related, (2) that they should include

these dimensions in their responses, and (3) that this

task was related to moral or ethical behavior. Even if

I had asked the Main Study participants to complete

the ratings after they completed the MABI, it is

possible that due to self-presentational concerns,

participants would have used the actual dimensions

that they included in their responses as those they

considered most moral-related.

Lastly, this investigation included both a data-

driven and implicit theory-based methodology for

defining what constituted a moral-related issue in

management. No previous investigations utilized

these methods (Agle et al., 1999; Weaver et al.,

1999a). In a domain where shareholder profit-

maximization is sometimes seen as a manager’s pri-

mary ethical obligation (Friedman, 1970; Sundaram

and Inkpen, 2004), such a contribution is particularly

meaningful. While some theorists (e.g., Freeman,

1994) would argue that no distinction does or should

exist, understanding how the distinction is concep-

tualized in managers’ minds is imperative to under-

standing how to attenuate that separation. The EFA

of responses to the MABI resulted in two factors,

one moral-related and one strategy-related, which

A Social Cognition Framework for Examining Moral Awareness 251

were consistent with categorizations of foci used in

other investigations (e.g., Agle et al., 1999; Weaver

et al., 1999a). The clustering of the observed

variables was also consistent with prior research. For

example, just as concerns related to the well-being

of the non-powerful and legal concerns loaded on the

same latent variable in the current investigation,

Butterfield et al. (2000) considered moral awareness

to be the recognition of both moral and legal issues.

Again, I acknowledge that this data cannot speak to

how other populations would define moral- versus

strategy-related issues. It is likely that for example,

philosophers, theologians, or doctors might see the

dimensions very differently. This, of course, is an

empirical question and one worthy of future inves-

tigation.

Moral awareness measurement

This investigation also contributed to the domain of

moral awareness measurement. With the exception

of Reynolds (2006a), there is no measurement for

moral awareness in the general business domain. The

current investigation developed an instrument that

used vignettes that were rated by individuals in both

the business and non-business domains as morally

ambiguous, understandable, realistic, containing

serious consequences, unfamiliar, and of an overall

high-quality. In addition, respondents were per-

mitted to recognize moral issues from the vignette

that were not pre-identified by experts or contained

in an existing code of ethics (Bebeau, 1994). This

method allowed participants to be acknowledged for

recognizing a wide-range of moral-related issues. It

is hoped that this instrument’s development opens

the doors for other researchers to pursue investiga-

tions of moral awareness in business and other

practical domains.

Strengths and limitations

Sample-based limitations

All managers came from one corporation within a

single industry. In addition, they were at similar

levels in the organization’s status hierarchy. Aca-

demics had a similarly homogenous origin. There-

fore, it cannot be determined if the results of this

investigation are generalizable to managers and aca-

demics outside of this sample. In addition, there was

a considerable difference in the gender composition

between the manager and academic groups (i.e., 73

vs. 45%, respectively); however, it is unlikely that

this difference explained any differences in moral

awareness between the two groups. Previous

research has found that gender has no significant

effect on moral awareness (Clarkburn, 2002; Jordan,

in press; Karcher, 1996). However, I explored this

possibility in my analyses and found no significant

effects.4

Comparison group

The use of junior-level academics as the non-

business comparison group is also a limitation in this

investigation. First, there may be inherent differ-

ences between the moral awareness of individuals

who choose to pursue a career in academia versus

management. The issue of selection-related differ-

ences is very difficult to avoid in non-randomized

design studies. In addition, the two groups have

significant differences in their years of education

and perhaps their analytical intelligence levels.

However, these differences would unlikely explain

the domain-based differences found in participants’

ability to correctly recall moral- (but not strategy-)

related issues in the business vignette they had read

minutes earlier. Previous investigations have not

found moral awareness to be improved by college

(Bebeau et al., 1985; Hebert et al., 1990; Sparks and

Hunt, 1998) or post-baccalaureate (Karcher, 1996)

education. In Addition, differences between first-

and second-year MBA students’ ratings of the six

dimensions support the hypothesis that it is business-

related socialization that nurtures the development

of a dominant business schema, thereby attenuating

moral awareness. There is no difference in students’

educational backgrounds (excluding the second

years’ additional year of business school) and there is

a low probability that first- and second-year students

at the same institution differ in their levels of ana-

lytical intelligence. However, it is possible that

education level affected moral awareness. In the

current investigation, I am unable to fully explore

the effects of education separate from domain of

expertise, since education level is endogenous to

domain of expertise. All but one academic had

attained a doctoral degree, whereas no managers had

252 Jennifer Jordan

attained a doctoral degree. These analytical differ-

ences withstanding, as mentioned above, it is also

possible that the differences found between manag-

ers and academics could be explained by endogenous

variables not accounted for in this investigation.

These include, but are not limited to, different

philosophies about one’s professional role, differ-

ent priorities about financial compensation, or

different ethical theories guiding behavior (e.g.,

consequentialist versus justice-based).

One could also make the argument that the nat-

ure of preparation for academia may have made the

academics hyper-moral. In response to this alternative

explanation, many of the academics came from

departments of chemistry, geography, geology,

mathematics, nutrition, physics, and astronomy. It is

unlikely that educational preparation for these dis-

ciplines primed individuals to be hyper-aware of

moral issues involved in morally ambiguous dilem-

mas; however, the data in this investigation is unable

to rule out this alternative explanation.

MABI

While the MABI presents a contribution to the

moral awareness measurement domain, its use also

imposes limitations on the conclusions that can be

drawn from the investigation. For example, it used

only three vignettes that were previously rated as

being easy to understand and not of a high technical

complexity. It is possible that had I used vignettes

that were highly technical and complex, managers

would have shown superior performance to the

academics in their ability to recall the strategy-

related issues. However, for the purposes of this

investigation, I wanted to ensure that the vignettes

were at a level understandable to both experts and

non-experts.

Future directions

The results of this investigation motivate several

future lines of research. The first is to examine if the

deficits found in managers’ moral awareness extend

to other components of Rest’s (1986, 1994) four-

component process, including moral intent and

moral action. Demonstrating moral awareness is the

first step towards taking a moral action and is the-

oretically necessary for subsequent moral behavior;

however, the magnitude of the relationship between

moral awareness and the other components is

unknown (Bebeau, 1994; Thoma, 1994).

Second, it should be explored if the relationship

between possessing a dominant business schema and

moral awareness can be replicated using different

methodologies and samples. The differences found

in managers’ and academics’ moral awareness are

unable to address how and when managers’ relative

moral unawareness develops and if it decreases as one

transcends the highest organizational ranks. If such a

decline does occur, it has unfortunate consequences

for the moral awareness and judgment of those in the

upper-echelons of the corporate hierarchy who are

often credited for setting the ethical tone of the

organization (Agle, 1996; Brown et al., 2005; Kelly

et al., 2004; Trevino et al., 2003). Examining the

individuals’ moral awareness at various levels of the

corporate hierarchy is one method for investigating

this development.

The third is to design interventions to improve

mangers’ moral awareness without compromising

their strategy-related acumen. Studies have found

that although well-formed schemas are difficult to

alter, in the face of contradictory or disconfirming

evidence, one can develop sub-categories within a

schema that extend its scope (Weber and Crocker,

1983). Accomplishing this objective in the work-

place may entail having organizational leaders

promote ethics-related initiatives to the same extent

that they promote strategy-related initiatives

(Trevino and Brown, 2004). Within business edu-

cation, it may include embedding ethics discussions

within all core business school classes so that stu-

dents do not become accustomed to thinking about

moral- and strategy-related dimensions as two

separate domains but rather as domains that are

inextricably linked.

Conclusions

These investigations’ findings have several important

implications for management practice and training.

The utility of possessing well-developed, expert

schemas is that they should aid in decision-making.

If managers’ schemas lead them to be slower and less

accurate when making decisions about moral-related

issues, then this finding supports the argument that

A Social Cognition Framework for Examining Moral Awareness 253

organizations should be motivated to partake in

activities that reinforce the inclusion of moral-

related issues in their practitioners’ dominant sche-

mas. There is strong evidence that managers will be

confronted with an increasing number of ethical

dilemmas which they will be required to responsibly

manage. Being unaware of and unable to correctly

recall these issues will not aid this objective.

This investigation also prompts one to question

the educational processes that occur during the

earliest part of a businessperson’s professional

socialization. Whereas one’s earliest experiences

within the family have an indelible impact on their

general moral development (Eisenberg et al., 2006),

the same is likely true for one’s seminal professional

training. The finding that more advanced (by a mere

twelve months) business students rated every

dimension as being less moral-related than less ad-

vanced students is troubling for educators and pro-

fessionals concerned about the moral-mindedness of

future business leaders.

There is little question that the corporate world is

confronting ethical challenges. Uncovering the fac-

tors that affect moral awareness is not only inter-

esting from a theoretical perspective but is also

imperative if we expect these challenges to be

abated.

Notes

1 It should be noted that as other business ethics

scholars have done in the past (Jones, 1991; Trevino,

1986), the terms moral and ethical (and all other forms of

these words) are being used synonymously.2 Priming is a phenomenon wherein specific, inten-

tionally activated concepts are brought to one’s mind

(Fiske and Taylor, 1991).3 There was a small number of extremely high scores

on response times. It was presumed that some partici-

pants briefly left their computers before submitting their

responses to some questions. As a result, the five highest

scores were identified and cut from the analyses. This

resulted in an elimination of all scores above the

approximate 97th percentile on each variable.4 Gender differences on the moral awareness compos-

ite variables were non-significant. CORP: females:

M = 42.35, SD = 14.89; males: M = 43.46; SD =

17.36; F(1, 136) = 0.15, p = 0.70). SHARE: females:

M = 38.14, SD = 12.66; males: M = 36.02; SD =

13.42; F(1, 136) = 0.84, p = 0.36).

Appendix A

Amazon river blindness

Haremann Labs, a large, American pharmaceutical

company, has the potential to develop a drug that

may combat a disease infecting thousands of people

in the remote regions of South America. This

potentially lifesaving drug, named Invironmed, holds

the promise of curing Amazon River Blindness

(ARB), a disease spread by a parasitic worm carried

by the bite of Amazon River Flies. This parasite

causes severe dermatological itching and eventually,

and almost inevitably, total blindness.

The World Health Organization (WHO) esti-

mates that approximately 350,000 people through-

out South America are blind due to ARB and that

almost a million others suffer from various stages of

the disease. Many children in villages along the

Amazon River believe that becoming blind is a

normal part of growing old.

ARB does not only create disease in South

American villages, but it also affects villagers’ access

to stable sources of food. Since many of the most

fertile regions of the Amazon are also the most

highly concentrated breeding grounds for the

Amazon River Flies, entire villages have had to

move to more desolate areas with less water and

vegetation - locations where food is not as abun-

dant. As a result, food shortages are frequent and

common.

Past attempts to cure or control the spread of

ARB have had limited success. There are currently

two drugs available that are useful in killing the

parasite that causes ARB, but both have severe side

effects and require close monitoring by medical

personnel, which is not realistic in the developing

regions along the Amazon River. Scientists have also

attempted to spray pesticides in the Amazon River

Flies’ most fertile breeding grounds, but this is only

effective for short term periods and requires a con-

stant re-administration of the pesticides.

Haremann Labs

Haremann Labs is one of the largest pharmaceutical

companies in the world. It employs over 30,000

people in its ten laboratories and research centers

254 Jennifer Jordan

across the United States. Unfortunately, Haremann

has recently faced some difficult financial conditions.

It is just emerging from a fifteen-year ‘‘human-

product drought,’’ meaning that Haremann has not

produced any significant or extremely profitable

drugs for human use in the last fifteen years. Over

this period of time, it has relied upon two older

drugs, which are very popular and whose sales

contribute a significant proportion of Haremann

Labs’ $2 billion in annual revenue. Unfortunately,

the seventeen-year patent on both drugs is quickly

coming to an end, meaning that they will both be

available for production on the generic market,

diminishing Haremann’s ability to rely on these

drugs for the majority of its revenues.

For this reason, the executives at Haremann have

decided to contribute approximately $1 billion over

the next five years to research for the development

of new drugs. On average, it takes twelve years and

$200 million to bring a drug from the laboratory to

the market. There are currently some promising

drugs in the developmental stage, but it is too early

to tell whether the drugs produced from these pro-

jects will ever reach the marketplace. Many drugs

that are developed have little chance of being prof-

itable to the company that develops them. Either the

disease that the drug treats is too rare to have a

substantial market for it, or the side effects are too

great to make it a realistic treatment option. It is

clearly a very critical time for Haremann’s future.

What it produces and distributes over the next five

years will greatly influence its competitive stance in

the pharmaceutical industry.

Details on Invironmed

A very similar chemical structure to that which is

used in the potential drug, Invironmed, has been

used for the last 5 years by Haremann in a drug

(labeled ‘‘Petromed’’) that treats parasitic infection in

cows, sheep, dogs and cats. Petromed is a top seller

in the veterinary medicine segment of Haremann’s

sales, and is a very profitable drug for the company.

The use of a similar chemical structure for treatment

of parasitic infection in humans was accidentally

stumbled upon by a chemist at Haremann. The

chemist found that the parasite killed by Petromed

was almost identical to the parasite that infects

humans with ARB. When the parasite was injected

with a chemical compound almost identical to

Petromed, the parasite died. Unfortunately, this

chemical compound, labeled Invironmed, has never

been tested on humans. Just because a drug is safe

for some mammals is no guarantee that it will be safe

for all mammals.

Financial risks and benefits of Invironmed

There is no possibility that the population in most

need of Invironmed will ever be able to afford the

drug. Given this reality, it is very questionable if

Haremann should pursue the development and dis-

tribution of this drug. Not only could Invironmed

be very expensive to develop and distribute, but also

it could reduce Haremann’s profits in other ways.

For example, if Invironmed shows any negative ef-

fects to the human population, this could result in

millions of dollars in law suits and could significantly

hurt sales of the animal form of the drug, Petromed.

You are a member of the Haremann Labs and

have been asked to join a committee that is focused

on what course of action should be taken in the

situation discussed above. You are about to go into a

meeting with this committee. In preparation for this

meeting you decide to make a list of the factors that

you think should be given the most consideration by

the committee when it is making its decision.

Please list the top 3–5 issues that you would bring

to the committee for consideration when deciding

what action to take. In about one sentence, also

indicate why this issue is important to deciding what

course of action should be taken. Please note that

you should not indicate what you think the corpo-

ration should do in this situation. Rather, only

indicate what issues you think are most important to

making this decision. Please list one issue at a time and

do not combine multiple issues.

After listing these issues, please rank order them

from 1 to 5 (or 3, or 4), making ‘‘1’’ the issue that

you would encourage the committee to give the most

weight to in its final decision, and ‘‘5’’ the issue that

you would encourage the committee to give the least

weigh to in its final decision. Please do not assign the

same rank number to more than one issue.

A Social Cognition Framework for Examining Moral Awareness 255

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to Art Brief, Mike Brown, Andrew King,

Anne O’Leary, Scott Reynolds, Robert Sternberg, Lin-

da Trevino, Alva Taylor, and Victor Vroom for provid-

ing feedback on an earlier draft. I would also like to

thank Yale University and the Tuck School of Business

at Dartmouth College for supporting this project. A

special thanks to Anthony Bukalew and Prometheus

Research. This investigation would never have come to

fruition without their generosity.

References

Abelson, R. P.: 1981, ‘Psychological Status of the Script

Concept’, American Psychologist 36, 715–729.

Agle, B. R.: 1996, Ethical Leadership at the Top: A

Comprehensive Model and Illustrations of the Role of

the Chief Executive Officer in Organizational Ethics.

Proceedings of the 7th Annual Meeting of the International

Association for Business and Society, pp. 1–5.

Agle, B. R., R. K. Mitchell and J. A. Sonnenfeld: 1999,

‘Who Matters to CEOs? An Investigation of Stake-

holder Attributes and Salience, Corporate Perfor-

mance, and CEO Values’, Academy of Management

Journal 42, 507–525.

Anderson, R. C. and P. D. Pearson: 1984, ‘A Schema-

Theoretic View of Basic Processes in Reading Com-

prehension’, in P. D. Pearson, R. Barr, M. L. Kamil

and P. Mosenthal (eds.), Handbook of Reading Research

(Longman, New York), pp. 255–291.

Anderson, R. C. and J. W. Pichert: 1978, ‘Recall of

Previously Unrecallable Information Following a Shift

in Perspective’, Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal

Behavior 17, 1–12.

Anderson, R. C., J. W. Pichert and L. L. Shirey: 1983,

‘Effects of the Readers’ Schema at Different Points in

Time’, Journal of Educational Psychology 76, 271–279.

Armstrong, M. B.: 1987, ‘Moral Development and

Accounting Education’, Journal of Accounting Education

5, 27–43.

Ashforth, B. E. and Y. Fried: 1988, ‘The Mindlessness of

Organizational Behaviors’, Human Relations 41, 305–329.

Ausubel, D. P.: 1963, The Psychology of Meaningful Verbal

Learning: An Introduction to School Learning (Grune &

Stratton, New York).

Bargh, J. A. and R. D. Thein: 1985, ‘Individual Construct

Accessibility, Person Memory, and the Recall-Judg-

ment Link: The Case of Information Overload’, Journal

of Personality and Social Psychology 49, 1129–1146.

Bazerman, M. H.: 2001, Judgment in Managerial Decision

Making, 5th Edition (John Wiley & Sons, New York).

Bebeau, M. J.: 1994, ‘Influencing the Moral Dimensions

of Dental Practice’, in J. R. Rest and D. Narvaez

(eds.), Moral Development in the Professions: Psychology

and Applied Ethics (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,

New Jersey), pp. 121–146.

Bebeau, M. J., J. R. Rest and C. M. Yamoor: 1985,

‘Measuring Dental Students’ Ethical Sensitivity’, Jour-

nal of Dental Education 49, 225–235.

Boyatzis, R. E.: 1998, Transforming Qualitative Information

(Sage Publications, Thousand Oak, CA).

Brewer, W. F. and J. C. Trayens: 1981, ‘Role of the

Schemata in Memory for Places’, Cognitive Psychology

13, 207–230.

Brown, M. E., L. K. Trevino and D. A. Harrison:

2005, ‘Ethical Leadership: A Social Learning Per-

spective for Construct Development and Testing’,

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

92, 117–134.

Butterfield, K. D., L. K. Trevino and G. R. Weaver:

2000, ‘Moral Awareness in Business Organizations:

Influence of Issue-Related and Social Context

Factors’, Human Relations 53, 981–1018.

Carpendale, J. I. M. and D. L. Krebs: 1992, ‘Situational

Variation in Moral Judgment: In a Stage or on a Stage’,

Journal of Youth and Adolescence 21, 203–224.

Cattell, R. B.: 1966, ‘The Scree Test for the Number of

Factors’, Multivariate Behavioral Research 1, 245–276.

Chase, W. G. and H. A. Simon: 1973, ‘Perception in

Chess’, Cognitive Psychology 4, 55–81.

Child, J.: 1972, ‘Organizational Structure, Environment,

and Performance: The Role of Strategic Choice’,

Sociology 6, 1–22.

Clarkeburn, H.: 2002, ‘A Test for Ethical Sensitivity in

Science’, Journal of Moral Education 31, 440–453.

Dunteman, G. E.: 1989, ‘Principle Components Anal-

ysis’, Sage University Paper Series on Quantitative

Applications in the Social Sciences, 07-069 (Sage,

Newbury Park, CA).

Eisenberg, N., T. Spinrad and A. Sadovsky: 2006,

‘Empathy-Related Responding in Children’, in M.

Killen and J. Smetana (eds.), Handbook of Moral

Development (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah,

NJ), pp. 517–549.

Finkelstein, S. and D. C. Hambrick: 1996, Strategic

Leadership: Top Executives and Their Effects on Organi-

zations (West Publishing Company, St. Paul, MN).

Fiske, S. T. and S. E. Taylor: 1991, Social Cognition

(Random House, New York).

Fraedrich, J. and O. C. Ferrell: 1992, ‘Cognitive Con-

sistency of Marketing Managers in Ethical Situations’,

Journal of Academy of Marketing Sciences 20, 245–252.

256 Jennifer Jordan

Freeman, R. E.: 1994, ‘The Politics of Stakeholder

Theory: Some Future Directions’, Business Ethics

Quarterly 4, 409–421.

Friedman, M.: 1970, ‘The Social Responsibility of

Business is to Increase Its Profits’, The New York Times

Magazine, September 13, pp. 32–33, 122, 124, 126.

Gioia, D. A.: 1992, ‘Pinto Fires and Personal Ethics: A

Script Analysis of Missed Opportunities’, Journal of

Business Ethics 11, 379–389.

Goetz, E. T., D. L. Schallert, R. E. Reynolds and D. I.

Radin: 1983, ‘Reading in Perspective: What Real

Cops and Pretend Burglars Look for in a Story’, Journal

of Educational Psychology 4, 500–510.

Hawkins, D. I. and A. B. Cocanougher: 1972, ‘Student

Evaluations of the Ethics of Marketing Practices: The

Role of Marketing Education’, Journal of Marketing 36,

61–64.

Hebert, P., E. M. Meslin, E. V. Dunn, N. Byrne and

S. R. Reid: 1990, ‘Evaluating Ethical Sensitivity in

Medical Students: Using Vignettes as an Instrument’,

Journal of Medical Ethics 16, 141–145.

Hemsley, G. D. and H. H. C. Marmurek: 1982, ‘Person

Memory: The Processing of Consistent and Inconsis-

tent Person Information’, Personality and Social

Psychology Bulletin 8, 433–438.

Hunt, D. and S. Vitell: 1986, ‘A General Theory of

Marketing Ethics’, Journal of Macromarketing (Spring),

5–16.

Hunt, S. D. and S. Vitell: 1992, ‘A General Theory of

Market Ethics: A Retrospective and Revision’, in

N. C. Smith and J. A. Quelch (eds.), Ethics in Marketing

(Richard D. Irwin, Homewood, IL), pp. 775–784.

Jones, T. M.: 1991, ‘Ethical Decision Making by Indi-

viduals in Organizations: An Issue-Contingent Model’,

Academy of Management Review 16, 366–395.

Jordan, J.: 2007, ‘Taking a First Step Towards a Moral

Action: A Review of Moral Sensitivity Measurement

Across Domains’, Journal of Genetic Psychology 168,

323–359.

Karcher, J. N.: 1996, ‘Auditors’ Ability to Discern the

Presence of Ethical Problems’, Journal of Business Ethics

15, 1033–1050.

Kardash, C. A. M., J. M. Royer and B. A. Greene: 1988,

‘Effects of Schemata on Both Encoding and Retrieval

of Information from Prose’, Journal of Educational

Psychology 80, 324–329.

Kelly, C., P. Kocuurek, N. McGaw and J. Samuelson:

2004, Deriving Value from Corporate Values (Aspen ISIB,

New York).

Kohlberg, L.: 1969, ‘Stage and Sequence: The Cognitive-

Developmental Approach to Socialization’, in D. A.

Goslin (ed.), Handbook of Socialization and Research

(Rand McNally, Chicago), pp. 347–480.

Kohlberg, L.: 1984, The Psychology of Moral Development,

Vol. 2 (Harper & Row, San Francisco).

Markus, H.: 1977, ‘Self-Schemata and Processing Infor-

mation About the Self’, Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology 35, 63–78.

Morgenson, G.: 2006, ‘Are Enrons Bustin’ Out All

Over?’, New York Times, Sect. 3.1, May 28.

Ocasio, W.: 1997, ‘Towards an Attention-Based View of

the Firm’, Strategic Management Journal 18, 187–206.

Pillutla, M. M. and X. Chen: 1999, ‘Social Norms and

Cooperation in Social Dilemmas: The Effects of

Context and Feedback’, Organizational Behavior and

Human Decision Processes 78, 81–103.

Rest, J. R.: 1986, Moral Development: Advances in Research

and Theory (Preager, New York).

Rest, J. R.: 1994, ‘Background: Theory and Research’,

in J. R. Rest and D. Narvaez (eds.), Moral Development

in the Professions: Psychology and Applied Ethics (Law-

rence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey), pp. 1–26.

Rest, J., D. Narvaez, M. J. Bebeau and S. J. Thoma:

1999, Postconventional Moral Thinking: A Neo-Kohlber-

gian Approach (Lawrence Erlbaum Press, Mahwah, NJ).

Reynolds, S. J.: 2006a, ‘Moral Awareness and Ethical

Predispositions: Investigating the Role of Individual

Differences in the Recognition of Moral Issues’, Jour-

nal of Applied Psychology 91, 233–243.

Reynolds, S. J.: 2006b, ‘A Neurocognitive Model of the

Ethical Decision-Making Process: Implications for

Study and Practice’, Journal of Applied Psychology 91,

737–748.

Schein, E. H.: 2004, ‘Learning When and How to Lie: A

Neglected Aspect of Organizational and Occupational

Socialization’, Human Relations 57, 260–273.

Shaub, M. K., D. W. Finn and P. Munter: 1993, ‘The

Effects of Auditors’ Ethical Orientation on Commit-

ment and Ethical Sensitivity’, Behavioral Research in

Accounting 5, 145–164.

Shiffrin, R. M. and M. W. Schneider: 1977, ‘Controlled

and Automatic Human Information Processing: II.

Perceptual Learning, Automatic Attending, and a

General Theory’, Psychological Review 84, 127–190.

Simon, H. A.: 1945, Administrative Behavior (Free Press,

New York).

Sparks, J. R. and S. D. Hunt: 1998, ‘Marketing

Researcher Ethical Sensitivity: Conceptualization,

Measurement, and Exploratory Investigation’, Journal

of Marketing 62, 92–109.

Steffensen, M. S., C. Joag-Dev and R. C. Anderson:

1979, ‘A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Reading

Comprehension’, Reading Research Quarterly 15, 10–

29.

Stern, L. D., S. Marrs, M. G. Millar and E. Cole: 1984,

‘Processing Time and the Recall of Inconsistent and

A Social Cognition Framework for Examining Moral Awareness 257

Consistent Behaviors of Individuals and Groups’,

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 47, 253–262.

Sternberg, R. J. and R. K. Wagner: 1985, ‘Practical

Intelligence in Real-World Pursuits: The Role of

Tacit Knowledge’, Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology 49, 436–458.

Stevens, J. P.: 1992, Applied Multivariate Statistics for the

Social Sciences, 2nd Edition (Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ).

Stevens, G. E., W. D. Richardson and A. E. Abramowitz:

1989, ‘Perceptual Differences of Ethical Decision Sit-

uations Business vs. Law: A Difference of Opinion’,

Southern Academy of Management Meeting Proceedings,

199–201.

Sundaram, A. K. and A. C. Inkpen: 2004, ‘The Corpo-

rate Objective Revisited’, Organizational Science 15,

350–363.

Taylor, S. E. and J. Crocker: 1981, ‘Schematic Bases

of Social Information Processing’, in E. T. Higgins,

C. P. Herman and M. P. Zanna (eds.), Social Cognition:

The Ontario Symposium, Vol. 1 (Erlbaum, Hillsdale,

NJ), pp. 89–134.

Taylor, S. E., J. Crocker and J. D’Agostino: 1978,

‘Schematic Bases of Social Problem-Solving’, Person-

ality and Social Psychology Bulletin 4, 447–451.

Tenbrunsel, A. E. and D. M. Messick: 1999, ‘Sanctioning

Systems, Decision Frames, and Cooperation’, Admin-

istrative Science Quarterly 44, 684–707.

Thoma, S.: 1994, ‘Moral Judgments and Moral Action’,

in J. R. Rest and D. Narvaez (eds.), Moral Development

in the Professions: Psychology and Applied Ethics (Law-

rence Erlbaum Associates, New Jersey), pp. 199–211.

Trevino, L. K.: 1986, ‘Ethical Decision-Making in

Organizations: A Person-Situation Interactionist

Model’, Academy of Management Review 11, 601–617.

Trevino, L. K. and M. E. Brown: 2004, ‘Managing to be

Ethical: Debunking Five Business Ethics Myths’, The

Academy of Management Executive 18, 69–77.

Trevino, L. K. and S. A. Youngblood: 1990, ‘Bad Apples

in Bad Barrels: A Causal Analysis of Ethical Decision-

Making Behavior’, Journal of Applied Psychology 75,

378–385.

Trevino, L. K., M. Brown and L. P. Hartman: 2003, ‘A

Qualitative Investigation of Perceived Ethical Leader-

ship: Perceptions from Inside and Outside the Ethical

Suite’, Human Relations 56, 5–37.

von Hippel, W., J. Jonides, J. L. Hilton and S. Narayan:

1993, ‘Inhibitory Effect of Schematic Processing on

Perceptual Encoding’, Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology 64, 921–935.

Weaver, G. R., L. K. Trevino and P. L. Cochran: 1999a,

‘Corporate Ethics Programs as Control Systems:

Influences of Executive Commitment and Environ-

mental Factors’, Academy of Management Journal 42,

41–57.

Weaver, G. R., L. K. Trevino and P. L. Cochran: 1999b,

‘Integrated and Decoupled Corporate Social Perfor-

mance: Management Commitments, External Pres-

sures, and Corporate Ethics Practices’, Academy of

Management Journal 42, 539–553.

Weber, J.: 1990, ‘Managers’ Moral Reasoning: Assessing

Their Responses to Three Moral Dilemmas’, Human

Relations 43, 687–702.

Weber, R. and J. Crocker: 1983, ‘Cognitive Processes in

the Revision of Stereotypic Beliefs’, Journal of Person-

ality and Social Psychology 45, 961–977.

Wood, D. J.: 1994, ‘Essays in the ‘‘Toronto Conference:

Reflections on Stakeholder Theory’’’, in T. Jones

(ed.), Business & Society 33, 101–105.

Wyer Jr., R. S., T. K. Srull, S. E. Gordon and

J. Hartwick: 1982, ‘Effects of Processing Objectives on

the Recall of Prose Material’, Journal of Personality and

Social Psychology 48, 674–688.

Zadny, J. and H. B. Gerard: 1974, ‘Attributed Intentions

and Informational Selectivity’, Journal of Experimental

Social Psychology 10, 34–52.

Ford Center for Global Citizenship,

Kellogg School of Management,

MEDS, 2001 Sheridan Road, Evanston,

IL 60208, U.S.A.

E-mail: j-jordan@kellogg.northwestern.edu

258 Jennifer Jordan